Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

The Nordic Journal of Social Research, as a bridge between the English-speaking world and the Nordic countries, welcomes submissions in English on a wide variety of themes in the field of social research. Authors need only to register with the NJSR website in order to make a submission.

Publishing in this journal is free of charge, there are no Article Processing Charges (APCs) or manuscript submission charges.

In your cover letter, please indicate the title of the submission, the authors' names, institution, and the address (including email address) for correspondence.

Submissions should be between 5000 to 7000 words. The word limit includes all text from the abstract through the list of references; it does not include legends for tables and figures or the body of tables. Manuscripts that substantially exceed the word limit will be returned.

The Nordic Journal of Social Research encourages authors who wish to submit an essay to establish an ORCID-profile.  

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts submitted for consideration must be original work and should not be simultaneously under review for publication in another journal or any other publication outlets.

All manuscripts must be submitted online.

The Nordic Journal of Social Research has a policy of double-blind review, where the identity of both the authors and the reviewers are kept confidential.

Figures and tables should not be embedded in the manuscript, but they can be placed at the end. Authors should indicate where they would like to have their figures and tables placed in the text.

Letters to the Editor

The Nordic Journal of Social Research will also consider publishing letters to the editor which are reviewed by at least one managing editor but not set out for external peer review.

Essay

NJSR mainly publishes scientific journal articles that present new empirical data and contribute to theoretical developments. However, we also accept essay submissions. Essays refer to an argumentative style of writing, and these submissions may be problematizing, explorative and discursive.  We expect the same high quality for essay publications as for research papers; they need to be focused on specified topics; follow a clear argument with a logical progression; and engage with updated research literature in the respective field. Essays need to engage with topics within the stated scope of the journal, and we welcome submissions with topical and novel contributions. Hence, we expect essays to adhere to one or more of the following characteristics:

• Argumentative
• Discursive
• Explorative
• Critical
• Logical
• Clear in thought
• Arguments based on empirical grounds and data
• Substantive conclusion
• Citations and references to all data and literature consulted

Manuscript Specifications for articles

Papers must be between 5000-7000 words, even if reviewers have asked for additional material. The number of words includes all text from the Abstract through the Literature Cited; it does not include tables or figure legends. The Abstract must not exceed 300 words.

Authors should double-space all text, number all lines (except in figures), and avoid as much as possible footnotes. All pages except figures must be numbered at the bottom. Authors should follow the spelling recommended in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (i.e., British-Oxford spellings), and the punctuation of manuscripts must likewise be in British English. We strongly recommend that authors whose first language is not English have the text professionally proofread before submitting the manuscript.

All manuscripts must be in Microsoft Word and submitted electronically.

The cover page of your manuscript must include the title of the paper, a running head (short title of 40 or fewer characters), a list of five to eight keywords, and a word count (all text from Abstract through Literature Cited but not including table or figure legends or the body of tables).

Manuscripts must contain an abstract that does not exceed 300 words. The abstract should state concisely the aims, methods, principal results, and major inferences of the work. Do not include acronyms in the abstract.

Following the reception of a submission, one or more editors will screen the article. If it is suitable for the journal, the editors will send the article to two referees for further reviewing. 

There are four possible results: rejection, accepted, accepted if revised, and resubmit for review. If accepted on the condition of revision, the editors will decide if a new process of reviews is necessary.

References

References should be indicated in the typescript by giving the author's name, with the year of publication in parentheses, as detailed in the APA style guide. If several papers by the same author and from the same year are cited, a, b, c, etc. should be put after the year of publication. The references should be listed in full at the end of the paper in standard APA format.

Proofs

The author will receive a proof in electronic form. The author will have to respond within three days to answer queries.

Offprints

The Nordic Journal of Social Research does not provide offprints.

Copyright Notice

Authors retain copyright of their work. Authors contributing to Nordic Journal of Social Research agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported licence. This licence allows third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the conditions that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.

Ensuring a Blind Peer Review

To ensure the integrity of the blind peer-review for submission to this journal, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:

1. The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text, with "Author" and year used in the references and footnotes, instead of the authors' name, article title, etc.
2. With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file (see under File in Word), by clicking on the following, beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application: File > Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.
3. With PDFs, the authors' names should also be removed from Document Properties found under File on Adobe Acrobat's main menu.

Keywords: The author should include a set of keywords for the article. These will be used as metadata tags when the article is published online.

Style Guide for Authors

Title

Most people will decide whether to read a paper solely on the basis of its title. Indexing and abstracting services and internet search engines also depend heavily on the information conveyed by the title. Titles should be clear and concise.

Abstract

The Abstract should summarize the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion in that order. Key points from each of these sections should be identifiable within the Abstract. The Abstract should not include literature citations.

Keywords

Include five to eight words or phrases that will be useful for indexing and literature searches.

Footnotes

Authors should avoid footnotes if possible. If they are deemed necessary, they should be used sparingly.

Supporting Elements (Tables, Figures, and Supporting Information)

Content

Tables and figures should be self-explanatory and should supplement rather than duplicate the text. Do not present large amounts of data in tables. A reader should be able to interpret tables and figures without referring to the text. Consequently, all abbreviations and terms unique to the paper must be defined in the table caption or figure legend. Common statistical notations need not be defined. Use the same terminology in supporting elements and in the text.

Tables

Legends should be one sentence long. Use the legend to describe the contents of the table as it relates to the topic of the paper. A list of the table's columns or row headings is not an informative table legend.

Figures

Figures must be of sufficient quality and resolution to remain clear at 60% reduction.

Language and Grammar

Clear language is critical

Clarity in language is important, especially for readers whose first language is not English. If English is not your first language, we strongly recommend that you ask a native English speaker with experience in publishing in scholarly journals to proofread your manuscript.

Colloquialisms and Jargon

Avoid colloquialisms and jargon.

Abbreviations and acronyms

Use abbreviations sparingly. Define all abbreviations, initializations, and acronyms at first use, however common they may seem to be. For example, the author should write 'analysis of variance (ANOVA)' when mentioning it for the first time. Furthermore, authors should not use 'i.e.', 'e.g.', 'etc.' and the like outside of parentheses. The following would be acceptable: The Nordic region (i.e., Norway, Sweden, etc.) is ... .

Active voice

Most of the sentences should be in the active voice. Authors should not hesitate to use we or I, even for the section on methods.

'And/or'

Do no use 'and/or'; pick either 'and' or 'or', or, if necessary, use instead 'or' and then 'or both' afterwards. For example, the phrase 'cars and/or bicycles' should be 'cars or bicycles, or both,'.

Tense

Use past tense in the Methods (describing what you did), Results (describing what your results were), and in the Discussion (referring to your results). Use the present perfect tense or present tense when you refer to publications. The abstract should be in the present perfect tense.

Punctuation

This journal follows British practice. Quotation marks are thus usually in the single style.

Spelling

The NJSR uses Oxford British spelling. Authors should consult the Concise Oxford English Dictionary for spelling. Perhaps the chief difference from standard British spelling is with regard to the use of '-ize' instead of '-ise' as a verbal ending, due to its Greek origin. Thus the NJSR uses 'realize' and 'criticize', but spells 'analyse' and 'paralyse' in the manner of standard British English, again owing to etymology.

Numbers

Authors should write out the numbers zero to ten in the text; any other number can be expressed as numerals.

Split infinitives

Avoid split infinitives.

April 2011